On Monday March 14, The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre lab drew blood to be analyzed by Canexia in Vancouver, British Columbia, to test to see if there is a treatable kind of cancer attacking me. We’re still waiting for results and holding onto hope.

Biomarker testing matters.

If the testing comes back with information about a treatable cancer, then taking daily pills could potentially turn my health around. Many lung cancer patients go from extremely poor health to feeling quite well in only a matter of days, once they start taking the right treatment (targeted therapy pills). This is what we are hoping for me. New research, as you probably know, is a game-changer for many people affected by cancer. We are hopeful that there will be some effective new research that will make a difference for me.

It’s possible that I may have to travel to get access to the pills through a clinical trial. We won’t know until we get information from the test. As many of you know, there can be challenges for people affected by lung cancer to get access to the life-extending treatments they need. Advocates fight for drug approvals and funding, for better access to clinical trials and for clinical trials to be offered in more geographical locations. Access matters.

Research matters – it matters for testing, for treatment options and for access to those treatments. Research matters, to me and to so many others, for people with lung cancer and so many other kinds of cancer. Advocacy matters! Research matters!